From my vantage point at the kitchen window this morning, I watch a small feather as it hangs over the front porch, then floats out over the yard, catching an updraft, and drifts toward the sky. I wonder idly if it was from a Carolina wren. They've been out of sight the last couple of days after some intensive nest building last week.
The site the birds have chosen is one they have used before, an old fishing creel, hanging from a pillar on the front porch, clearly visible from the window over our kitchen sink. The top of the basket has a Carolina-wren sized hole, which makes a perfect entrance for those little bundles of energy. This year, they've decorated it with dried flowers.
Both of the birds were involved in the building project. They flitted from the bricks to the woodpile, which was only a short hop from their home site.
Last year, the two of them started in on this nest, and it was derailed by the titmice, but the way the wrens were going at it last week, it looked like they had put all of that behind them.
I've told myself that I wasn't going to count my wrens before they hatched this year. Still, I catch myself figuring; the incubation period is 12-16 days, and the young leave the nest 12-14 days after they are hatched. It's possible, if everything goes well, that we could see fledglings, at the earliest, on April 29th.
In the meantime, I need to reign in my expectations and be grateful for each day's wonders, like the little feather floating up to the sky, destination unknown.
